Emerging Scholars Blog

InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network

Midwest Faculty Conference

Peace, Beauty, Relationships: Teenage reflections on the MidWest Faculty Ministry Conference

Sunset at Cedar Campus
Sunset at Cedar Campus

It’s about time for a follow-up to The End of Higher Ed — Update #1 and what a joy to have one of my talented teenage daughters looking for the opportunity 🙂 If you have a story to share about one of this summer’s faculty conferences, please be in touch with me. Thank-you! ~ Thomas B. Grosh IV, Associate Director, Emerging Scholars Network 

Peace and Beauty . . .

The air grew crisp and it was so incredibly quiet… It wasn’t until we arrived at the lake that we realized it may not be the city at all that seemed so quiet, but the reality that 5 full of life kids were not with us. Either way, we missed our kids but relished in the calm and tranquil. We walked out in the waters. We felt the sand under our feet. We embraced the quiet and the beauty. I could feel the weight of 5 long, stressful weeks lift… I felt alive. Inspired. Refreshed. In awe. Captivated…  I’ve never experienced water so calm…  It was like glass for as far as my eyes could see…until we stepped in and caused ripples… The quietness demanded attention in a way different from the thundering of towering waves hitting sandy beaches…Coming out of a period of treading water and trying to stay above the waves made me stop and rest in a new way in the calm waters. – Ashley Campbell, Don’t Forget You Love to Swim (Under the Sycamore, 9/15/2014)

This quote from Ashley Campbell from her blog, Under the Sycamore, describes a night at InterVarsity Cedar Campus almost perfectly.  I don’t have five kids, a husband, and have never been to Great Salt Lake, but I still related to this.  I had felt that peace and beauty.  The creation just standing still and everything stopping.  In that moment, I didn’t think about the daunting first day as a freshman in high school.  I didn’t think about my friend’s problems, I didn’t even think about my imperfections.  All I did was praise God.  Over and over again, I remember saying, “Thank God.  Amen.”  I remember thinking of song lyrics that described my feelings. [Read more…] about Peace, Beauty, Relationships: Teenage reflections on the MidWest Faculty Ministry Conference

ESN Mentoring Letter — MidWest Faculty Conference

Woods at InterVarsity’s Cedar Campus. Photo taken by Thomas B. Grosh IV while on a reflective walk during the 2014 Midwest Faculty Conference.

Hannah, Thank-you for offering this letter of encouragement! The faculty with whom I shared your words at Mentoring over the Long Term: Crafting Conversations, a seminar co-led with Terry Gustafson (OSU, Chemistry Professor) at the 2014 MidWest Faculty Conference on The Ends and Goals of Higher Education in Twenty-First-Century America: Change and the Calling of the Christian Educator, were very appreciative. I look forward to posting material from the seminar in order to create a toolkit for those seeking to dig more deeply into mentoring. ~ Thomas B. Grosh IV, Associate Director, Emerging Scholars Network

Dear Friends in Higher Ed,

I remember kneeling in the woods one fall day during graduate school, afraid. The reds and oranges around me were stunning, but I was more aware of my knees on the ground and of the growing disquiet I felt. I was afraid not because my secular department was hostile to my faith (it had turned out to be quite supportive of my interest in theology), and not because I was surrounded by the flashier sort of temptation (I lived in a small college town at the time). I was afraid because things like the resurrection of Christ seemed hazier and hazier to me as I got busier and busier. I had committed to a workload that semester that I really couldn’t sustain, and life came to seem a blur of classes, papers, and four-hour nights. I read Scripture each morning, but found it hard to concentrate because there was always another deadline pressing.

As I adjusted to the pressures of grad student life, I longed for a mentor who could advise me on living faithfully in the rush of competing deadlines, someone who could also guide me in integrating faith well with my subject. My department was very strong in mentoring and provided me with great professional and personal advisors. But it wasn’t really their job to ask how my spiritual life was going or supply direct advice on integrating faith and learning, and I hadn’t been there long enough to figure out who might be interested in that kind of mentoring. [Read more…] about ESN Mentoring Letter — MidWest Faculty Conference

Intro: The Ends & Goals of Higher Ed in 21st Century America

Bob Trube introduces the 2014 MidWest Faculty Conference.

Thank-you to Bob Trube for sharing his introduction to the 2014 MidWest Faculty Conference (dare I say “Dialog”) on The Ends and Goals of Higher Education in Twenty First Century America: Change and the Calling of the Christian Educator (InterVarsity’s Cedar Campus) with the Emerging Scholars Network!

What a kick-off to a tremendous collaborative endeavor/working community. Much more coming, feel free to chime in with your insights and questions. To God be the glory! ~ Thomas B. Grosh IV, Associate Director, Emerging Scholars Network

Conference Introduction: Esther 4:10-14

10 Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, 11 “All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.”

12 When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, 13 he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” [Read more…] about Intro: The Ends & Goals of Higher Ed in 21st Century America

Fruitful, Faithful Presence in the Academy: Part II

Alan G. Padgett, DPhil (Oxford), Professor of Systematic Theology at Luther Seminary (St. Paul, MN).
Christianity and Western Thought Vol 2. Faith and Reason in the 19th Century. Steve Wilkins and Alan G. Padgett. InterVarsity Press, 2010.

In Part I, I explored what Alan G. Padgett, DPhil (Oxford) will share at the upcoming Midwest Faculty Conference: Fruitful, Faithful Presence: Living Theologically in the Midst of the Academy (Cedar Campus, MI, 6/22-28).* Although the conference (or what some have termed a Confamication**) will provide an opportunity for Padgett to develop his thoughts on Fruitful, Faithful Presence in the Academy, he has a significant amount of work in theology involving systematic theology, moral theology (ethics), and the theology-science dialog which you can explore. He is the author or editor of eleven books, including Introducing Christianity (with his wife, Dr. Sally Bruyneel), Christianity and Western Thought (Volumes 2 & 3) and his most recent, The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity. Below are some on-line materials which I recommend you browse, dig into a few of specific interest, and share/discuss with others 🙂

[Read more…] about Fruitful, Faithful Presence in the Academy: Part II

Fruitful, Faithful Presence in the Academy: Part I

Alan G. Padgett, DPhil (Oxford), Professor of Systematic Theology at Luther Seminary (St. Paul, MN).

Fruitful, Faithful Presence: Living Theologically in the Midst of the Academy, the Midwest Faculty Conference is just around the corner (Cedar Campus, MI, June 22 – 28).* On Monday, I had the opportunity to interview Alan G. Padgett, DPhil (Oxford), Professor of Systematic Theology at Luther Seminary (St. Paul, MN), regarding the material he will be presenting. This is the first of two posts.

As we talked, I appreciated Padgett’s commitment to “represent classic Christianity” and for theology to be “a way of loving God with all your mind. . . . a natural expression of Christian belief because it’s thinking about God. And that means that Christians – including Christian academics – are doing theology all the time.” I’m looking forward to learning more about his “mutuality model,” which explores how theology overlays with other disciplines instead of serving as the queen of the sciences or the irrelevant fifth wheel.

At Fruitful, Faithful Presence, Padgett will present various “niches” in Christian life and practice wherein theology can live and thrive, then turn to “theology as scientia and Christian Scholarship” to discuss academic theology and the way this plays a part in Christian scholarship in general. He will also probe, “Why have Christians engaged in academic theology over the millenia?  What common & spiritual Christian practices are the natural home and ‘soil’ for vital theology?” For those interested in more specifics . . . [Read more…] about Fruitful, Faithful Presence in the Academy: Part I